Originally the Indian Peace medals were made for the British Kings starting in the pre-revolutionary times and then progressed to having one for each of the US presidents until the late 1860s.
They come in 2 main types — a normal, round coin shape that everyone is familiar with, and an engraved, oval type medal.
Since these medals were originally given to the various Indian tribes as a show of friendship, this is where it starts to get exciting for the treasure hunter.
The main reason is to think like this: Say you were given a nice shiny medal for a US government agent declaring their love of peace.
Then, a few weeks later, sitting in your teepee minding your own business, that same government agent who gave you the medal comes in again and tells you they are relocating you and your family to the middle of nowhere.
Well, the first instinct would be to get rid of anything that reminds you of the government as soon as possible.
Now, most treasure hunters and metal detector users know that 90 percent of these medals that were lost or thrown away will be worthless due to where they ended up and what they were originally made of.
We will concentrate on the ones that are not. Gold is really not affected by much, not to mention the ones made of gold have sold at auction for around 100,000.00! Not bad for one swing of a detector!
So, where do you start looking? Since the entire US was at the onetime inhabited by at least one Indian tribe, that covers the general question of “where do I look?”
Some people have always concentrated in areas of Pennsylvania where arrowheads were found.
Researching these places will narrow down your initial search area. Try contacting a club or a private collector in your area that will be willing to share more information. Reading everything you can about your local history will also help.
We now have a new dimension to add to our treasure-hunting arsenal. As with anything you may discover, be careful how you treat the items you’ve found and recovered until you know the value of your find.
And it goes without saying that you also need to be careful and considerate of the property you are hunting on.
One final thought… no matter what your treasure passion is it all comes down to research and planning.
If you fail to do these 2 things your chances of success will be slim. So do the research, have fun and good luck in all you do!
